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I admire your tenacity. [Let’s just leave it at that, Jack. - Column Manager]

Zogby is just humoring you guys. As I read in your article, ?With three weeks? reflection, he?s not convinced there was an altered vote - accidental or otherwise - at least not on ?a grand scale.? But Zogby says the ?system is not geared for a close election like this? and if ?many millions of people? don?t think that their vote was counted accurately,? the results are almost as bad as if an election was rigged, or decided by static charges in a thousand computers.? In other words, the election was probably fair, but if some people think it wasn?t, that?s bad. Who can argue with that? Of course, not everyone suffers fools as gladly as John Zogby.

You all are working very hard to create another myth like Florida. This time is really silly. Bush won in Ohio by more than 130,000 votes. Kerry won in Pennsylvania by a smaller margin. There were also close Kerry wins in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Maybe we should recount all of them too. By the time we get to metaphysical certainty, the next election will be finished.

Most of the media was friendly to Kerry and most journalists voted for him. You know why the mainstream media isn?t covering this story? Because it?s stupid. It is a conspiracy theory that makes sense until you look closely. Then the evidence melts away. It kind of reminds me of something out of Monty Python. ?Look I am being repressed. See the violence inherent in the system.?

And talk about stealing an election. Even if the ?lost? votes were 60% for Kerry, you would still need nearly a million of them to overcome Bush?s lead. Ohio must have had a bigger voter turnout than Eastern Ukraine.

The Miami Herald just completed a recount in three Florida counties (Lafayette and Union) where conspiracy theorists were astonished that registered Democrats voted for Bush. They recounted and found that Bush had indeed won by a large margin. “People here are mostly fundamentalist Christians who work in the prisons,” county election supervisor Babs Montpetit told the Herald. “Do you think they’re going to vote for the liberal senator from Massachusetts?

One down, several to go. I know ?questions have been raised.? Remember the old saying that a fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer, but that doesn?t make him a wise man.

Republicans have a saying, ?if it?s not close, they can?t cheat.? I guess maybe that saying is wrong. We have only begun to plumb the depth of the depravity. I hoped for a clear victory and wrote on these pages that I preferred a clear Kerry victory to a close Bush. Well we got a clear victory, but it didn’t seem to do any good.

Well we got a clear victory, but it didn’t seem to do any good.

I don’t see what more you can ask for, Jack. Kerry and the mainstream media have wholeheartedly acknowledged Bush as the winner. In fact, I would argue that they made too much of Bush’s margin of victory, which was relatively close by historical standards, especially for an incumbent.

The undisputable fact is that the GOP was systematically trying to discourage people who were likely to vote Democratic (e.g., Blacks) from voting. You can argue that it didn’t change the outcome, but I don’t think you can blame some Democrats for being sore. Maybe next time they can retaliate by sending thousands of inner-city Blacks to monitor suburban polling places and challenge voters. Of course, such a thing would never be permitted to happen.

The only way we are going to get out of this mess is by keeping out the helpful “monitors” and adopting uniform standards for voting technology, provisional ballots, etc. If our voting system worked nearly as well as our banking system there would be nothing to complain about. You don’t see people marching in the streets because of problems with their ATM machine. It’s not because they don’t care about their money; it’s because the machines work and are auditable.

Miami Herald recount proves what?

Check out this at DailyKos:

No flaws…or were there?

Interesting that the stopped counting in one county when the results seemed to be diverging from the original counts.

And that all errors favor Bush….

If it was soooo ‘close’ the other way around would you still want a recount due to possibilities of fraud? Or does the fraud not matter if you are the winner?
537 votes is close.
Anyone calling for a recount in New Mexico? What was the margin there?
Their governor said he knew for sure Kerry would win that state. He had no doubt. If so sure, why no recount?
Right. It doesn’t matter because it wouldn’t give Kerry the White House.
Because Ohio was the state to win, it wouldn’t matter if Bush won by half a million, people would still be hollering about fraud and calling for recounts.
Maybe we should just redo the whole election, after all - ‘How can so many people be so dumb?’

Woody-

Please show me this undisputable fact of black voter suppression. And as I’ve said before I’ll protest, yell, kick and scream as loud as anyone.

I don’t dispute that there may have been fraud in the election, but what difference does it make if there was? I mean, how widespread would this fraud have to be for anything to happen? —Especially since, if you look hard enough, I’m sure you can find votes on both sides that are fraudulent.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t care or that we should overlook election fraud. I’m asking when it becomes time to look forward instead of backward.

George,

I’d rather not go there, because I imagine this is going to come down to the meaning of the word “suppress”. The word I used was “discourage”. If you send thousands of people to challenge the credentials of potential voters, I think it is fair to infer that you don’t want them to vote. (Again, imagine if the boot was on the other foot, and Jesse Jackson led thousands of inner-city African-Americans into the suburbs to challenge voters’ credentials. I don’t think they would be lauded by the GOP as good, civic-minded citizens…) The GOP doesn’t deny that they did this; they just say they weren’t exclusively targetting Blacks.

Bugcrazy,

You tawkin’ to me? I’m the one who used the word “close”, so you must be talkin’ to me.

I think that we are basically in agreement. I didn’t mean to imply that Bush didn’t actually win. (Admittedly that is a popular sentiment in certain circles, so I can understand the confusion.) He did. I don’t think that the Democrats should try to overturn the results of the election. What they should do, however, is try to fix the system. This will benefit everyone.

George, ask for proof of black voter suppression and you’re likely to get a video from Michael Moore or an overheated logically-challenged rant from Jesse Jackson.

I think everybody should watch the Moore video, actually, and marvel at the incredible, staggering hypocricy and stupidity on display. If Republicans acted for even a second in the way Democrats think they have a right to, the outrage would be deafening.

Here Moore has cameras stalking around inside a polling place (is that even legal?) and recording every activity of voters and the Republican poll watchers (which, incidentally, ARE legal—there are Democratic poll watchers too).

He’s even recording their faces, for crying out loud. And then he has the nerve to talk about harrassment and intimidation? And what crime does he find these poll workers guilty of? Of being white. That’s it.

There’s an idea, actually. Instead of sending poll observors as provided for under the law, why not just send a few Republican acivists into the polling areas to get in everybody’s face with video cameras like Moore does?

And then Jesse Jackson shows up, steps out of his limo, glances around a few times, and apparently finds himself transported back in time to Selma, Alabama.

He sees some white people, and as we all know, any black person confronted with a white face instantly feels “intimidated” and “suppressed.”

Jesse Jackson no doubt believes that many blacks voted for George Bush or failed to vote for Kerry because of the Vulcan mind control exerted by white poll observers.

Which brings me to this final example of Republican election-manipulation.

I’m sure our friends on the left will be making a very big deal about this in the near future. Karl Rove will apparently stop at nothing.

He’s even recording their faces, for crying out loud.

If you are going to go around asking people for their ID, I don’t see how you can be entitled to anonymity. I think it would actually be cute if their face was superimposed with their voter registration information. (Joe Blow, 123 Lillypad Lane…) That would just make it even-stevens.

The parties are entitled to have a person at the polls and they should do so to keep the process honest.

I would be delighted to talk to Michael Moore IF he would agree not to edit my comments. That is how he manipulates.

Intimidation is a straw man trotted out to frighten the children.

The parties are entitled to have a person at the polls and they should do so to keep the process honest.

I would be delighted to talk to Michael Moore IF he would agree not to edit my comments. That is how he manipulates.

Intimidation is a straw man trotted out to frighten the children.

Woody-

Fair enough. And again, I think 99 point something % of all voters would and do deplore all acts of voter suppression or fraud from either side. I’m sure there are some hard core Republicans out there trying some dirty tricks, just as there are Democrats extracting votes from illegal and dead people. But the key is that these cases are dealt with swiftly and judiciously. And I will join with anyone, anywhere, anytime and make a huge loud noise if they’re not.

Let me give a little anecdote from my voting experience this year. My wife, white, went with me, white, to vote. My wife was challenged. She had her voter registration card with her and it was not her first time voting. The problem was that her drivers license had our previous address printed on it. (As a side note, I was not required to show ID, I would have had the same problem.) She didn’t want a provisional ballot, so we jumped through a few hoops to get them sufficient proof of her residence, and she was then allowed to vote.

The point is that people may be challenged because of how they look, but the challenge to their right to vote can’t be upheld without a reason. That’s why both sides have poll-watchers looking out for (hopefully) everyone.

George,

Here you go…

GOP Lawmaker Suppress The Black vote quote

I thought this little tib-bit shows how out of touch the left-wingers with these conspiracy theories. This is from John Fund in OpinionJournal’s Political Diary courtesey for the Volokh Conpsiracy (a blog by some of the more prominent conservative law professors in the country):

Two Miami Herald reporters got a real education in red-state thinking when they decided to check out the Internet conspiracy theories that George W. Bush had stolen Florida because several counties with overwhelmingly Democratic voter registration edges had voted Republican for president. As one blogger put it, “George W. Bush’s vote tallies … are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable.”

Not after the Miami Herald scribes decided to actually drop in on three of the northern Florida counties whose vote totals were questioned. Sounding as if they were cultural anthropologists visiting an exotic tribe, reporters Meg Laughlin and David Kidwell first visited Union County, where over 75% of voters are Democrats. They physically recounted the ballots cast in this month’s election and concluded the results accurately reflected Mr. Bush’s reported 72% victory. Election Supervisor Babs Montpetit explained: “People here are fundamentalist Christians who work in the prisons. Do you think they’re going to vote for the liberal senator from Massachusetts?”

Having absorbed that observation, the intrepid pair proceeded to next-door Suwannee County, immortalized in the famous Stephen Foster song. Election Supervisor Glenda Williams showed them the ballots, which the reporters noted validated Mr. Bush’s 70% victory there. “Most people in this county are against abortion and gay marriage. So they voted for Bush,” she explained.

The final stop on the team’s cultural odyssey was Lafayette County, where 83% of voters claim to be Democrats. Here the reporters didn’t have to wait long for an explanation as to why Mr. Bush won three-fourths of the vote. A billboard on the road proclaimed “There is life before birth” and a neighborhood was called “The Christian Village.” After quickly recounting the county’s ballots, the reporters headed back to the Jacksonville airport, noting that the roadway was lined with “Snoball stands, chicken farms and anti-abortion billboards.”

The Herald’s excursion into Florida’s Bush Country may not have turned up any election scandals, but the concept appeals to me. Perhaps more big-city media outlets should send expeditionary forces into rural and exurban parts of their states and report on what people there are thinking. Then fewer of them might be surprised every two years.

This post makes the right point- the left is in denial about the “common people” support for their agenda. They simply cannot believe that given their “enlightened” big government programs, they would not win every election. yet the republicans, despite many many problem, continue to win. Just like Bush’s win I think was mostly due to the problems with John Kerry, so the Republican’s current strength in politics is due to Democrat self-delusion, of which these conspiracy theories are just a small example.

So go ahead, keep believing conspiracy theories- it will just delay your party’s needed reflection on why they have become a minority party in this country (all while facing of against a pretty inept president from the other party!), and how they can get back to winning.

Misha,

I am tired of hearing how real salt-of-the-earth Americans go to church and vote Republican, and only degenerate flakes vote Democratic. If that’s true, this country is about half degenerate flake. You don’t see me complaining about how conservative Republicans are “out of touch” with my secular values. My views on religion are a lot closer to those of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson than theirs.

As for Bush being “inept”, that sounds like a good reason for vote Kerry…

Woody, you misunderstood my comments. I am not saying that there is anything more “real” about these religious voters, but rather that they ARE there, and that your party has lost touch with them.
In reality, I have about as much in common with religious conservatives as I do with left-wing liberals. I equally do not agree with (1) imposing one’s religious views through government and (2) imposing one’s socialist vision on fellow citizens. I happen to agree with religious conservatives on some issues (abortion, free market), and with liberals on other issues (gay marriage, civil liberties). In fact, I bet most liberals are more religious than I am (since i am completely agnostic).
My major point was that these conspiracy theories are a screed against reality. The reality is these registered democrat voters now share more in common with Bush than democrats, and you guys need to open your eyes to that if you want WIN ELECTIONS. These people going around posting that the election was stolen are living in denial of this fact, and trying to recreate the hysteria of 2000, when they convinced themselves that that election was stolen (after all, it was much easier for the last 4 years to argue that Bush was illegitimate AND wrong, now they are stuck with making the case that he is just wrong).
On your Kerry v. Bush point, let me tell you a little story to illustrate my point. I have a friend who lives in Florida who, for the first time in her life, voted Democrat this election (she voted absentee, so it was before election day). On election night she called me and said “THANK GOODNESS Bush won.” She against Bush because of what I said above- she thought he was inept. She came to regret her vote because she realized that Kerry, while perhaps more able, would use that considerable ability to implement a left-wing agenda which she did not believe in. As a result, she preferred Bush to Kerry (I think this kind of thinking well explains Bush’s electoral win despite poor approval rating numbers). I voted libertarian this election, but I had the same attitude on election night as she did- I was happy Bush beat Kerry. A president Kerry would have pushed judicial nominees, economic policy, healthcare policy, trade policy, and spending that I think are very dangerous to our country- and I did not want to see it happen. Bush is also pushing many proposals that I think are bad for this country- including the debt, the gay marriage amendment, increasing Medicare, increasing the department of education, illegal immigrant amnesty. But on almost every issue Bush is bad on, Kerry was worse (other than gay marriage).
Anyway, to illustrate this last point, ask yourself if the situation was reversed. Say the democratic party nominee was an inept liberal who had done a job as president you did not approve of. And say his opponent was an effective far right-winger, who you knew wanted to push a right-wing agenda in this country that you thought was destructive to your vision of the country. Who would you want to win that race?

Bert-

Yes I remember that quote when it happened although I think the vote he was talking about was legalizing marijuana or something. But tell me, what action did Mr. Pappageorge take in order to suppress the vote in Detroit during the election? Was the election indeed suppressed? What campaign did he spearhead to reduce turnout in the inter-city precincts or what dirty trick did he use?

If he did suppress a vote he should go to jail. If he was just misquoted as he says then his actions after last summer should prove his guilt or innocence.

Woody

I don’t want to speak for Misha, but I don’t think that his article was touting the virtues of Republican Middle America so much as pointing out that the left doesn’t know it is there.

John Kerry’s significant loss seems to have surprised the pundits as much as the Republican gains in congress in 2002. Each time they look for some exceptional reason or concoct some conspiracy theory to explain the outcome. The need only drive a short distance to talk to people who could explain it to them.

The Democrats were once the party of the common man. This is no longer true. The Democrats are increasingly the party of the edges. The super rich and the super educated gave a majority to Kerry. The poor and least educated also voted in majority for Kerry. The people in the middle – the common man and in this case 51% of the electorate – gave a majority to Bush. There is also a geographical dimension, but that is less important than the social one. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. It doesn’t need to be a values judgment about who is better. It is merely a trend that the Democrats may want to address if they plan to win back all the ground they have lost since 1980. Most of the people in the Florida Counties in the article used to be Democrats. Most are still registered as Democrats. Most voted for Bush. Democrats might be curious as to why.

Misha,

Ok, my reaction wasn’t very well directed at your comment. But those sentiments are certainly in the air.

Jack,

You have a curious definition of “the common man”. Do you really think that it’s possible to be too poor to be “common”?

Who was surprised that Bush won? I wasn’t. Let’s name names here. There seems to be a myth that the Democrats were cocky and overconfident, but I don’t see the evidence. People in the know knew that Bush had, at a minimum, a fair chance of being re-elected.

Woody
I was using the “common man” in the way that is commonly is used. The Democrats used to say they were the party of the common man. I don’t know for sure what they meant, but I mean the same thing.

If Democrats were not surprised by the Bush win, why to do they keep on talking about it like there was some kind of mistake or deception. If they thought Bush had a good chance of winning a majority, and he did win a majority, why all the gnashing of teeth?

Thank you, Bert. Our past election makes Watergate seem like mere childs play.

If you are interested, you can get lots more info and articles here:
http://www.helpamericarecount.org/election.html

And here are a few other interesting stories that are recent:

Former MIT Associate Professor of Math, David Anick calculated the odds of Bush’s victory margin, given the exit polls, to be on the order of 1 in 50,000:
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=405:

Exit polls showed a Kerry landslide (winning all but one swing state) All disparities in the polls were in Bush’s favor, with swing states results showing the largest shift:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

Jackson Joins Critics Of Ohio Vote
http://www.nbc4i.com/politics/3953104/detail.html

Election Day Aftermath - More voting questions raised:
http://www.dispatch.com/election.php?story=dispatch/2004/11/25/20041125-D1-03.html

International Observers From The Ukraine Cite Examples Of Voting Fraud - In the United States:
http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i22jthoreau.htm

George,

What exactly was the vote about if it wasn’t about ‘legalizing marijuana or something’? If I am to take Mr. Pappageorge’s word he was misquoted, where is your proof of the reporter confessing this?

Was the election indeed not suppressed? If you have no proof he was mis-quoted, then his confession of prior efforts by the Republican Party to suppress the Black vote, stands.

See George, I play can the game as well as you.

Woody,

No. Your comment helped mine along but it was not directed at you. It was directed at anyone who thinks Ohio went the ‘wrong way’ and should be recounted, revoted, or whatever.

Poeple want to blame the Gay Marriage issue yet not all the states with that on the ballot went to Bush.

I think the Dems got it right. Let them continue to think the way they do.

Bert-

According to one of the stories back then (and I think your link) he said those were his words but they were taken out of context. He was talking about a local referendum on the ballot about medical marijuana and not the National Presidential election.

Hey I’m not defending the guy and don’t know or care much about him. He’s a State Senator and if he’s a bad guy I hope he gets voted out or run out.

But I don’t think that statement is an act of voter suppression in and of itself. And certainly not reflective of the Republican Party on a national level.

I’ve gone on about this topic before. I think some are missing the point. I’m not interested in stories of vote fraud that don’t have an impact beyond the immediate locality. But people seem blind to the technological ease with which the vote could have been hacked. Here’s a good (albeit partisan) explanation of just how easy it was to commit vote fraud:

http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

It’s the strangest thing, people just can’t get their minds around the technical side of this story. Perhaps it’s too technical, too geeky. Maybe most people think networks run by magic, so they cannot comprehend how one person could have changed hundreds of thousands of votes in a matter of minutes.

Was that possible? Definitely. Did it happen? We may never know, and the burden of evidence is upon the accusers.

The Associated Press ran a story on voting irregularities & anomalies, but barely mentioned the technical side of this story.

The largest newspaper in Oregon, The Oregonian, received more letters to the editor on vote fraud than any other topic last week. They printed precisely one letter about it, and that letter was a few short, vague sentences.

The real story is the technical story. Unfortunately, it doesn’t lead because it doesn’t bleed. But if you want to know what a hacked vote would look like if it ever occurred, the recent election provides a pretty good example.

I told commenter Jack previously that I was making a mental list in my head, totally the number of like-minded detractors who would comment in this thread - of which he was first on the list.

They would have in common (as I expected) their own agenda, pushing aside my two requests to assume John Zogby’s judgment as my own, and at least acknowledge the wealth of source information I had provided.

My motivation for posting this at WatchBlog was not a hysterical attempt to throw out the verdict from Nov 2. As a pragmatic Kerry supporter, I dismissed the controversy also at first, as long as I too thought this was the futile goal. However, in attempting to make that decision for myself from the wealth of information available, I joined the chorus of outrage for far more credible reasoning.

Thanks to Woody, Blue Man, Adrienne and Phx8 for understanding exactly the point I was trying to make, and for offering their insight and supporting sources.

I should expect nothing less from a group of detractors that will chose to defend Tom DeLay and the Swift Boat Veterans, to ignore the stories of disenfranchised Ohio voters preferring to focus in on favorite targets like Micheal Moore and Jesse Jackson. The same group that spun foreign policy nightmare scenarios out of two phrases uttered by John Kerry (‘sensitive’ ‘global test’), are willing to give a quoted admission of past and future Black voter suppression from a Republican lawmaker a pass - although the newspaper stands by it’s reporting.

I see that none of you would tackle the documented evidence provided in The Free Press article, near the end of my post. Most of you would argue that the Democrats inability to compete in the South stems from our failure to understand voters of faith. But, in the same breath, you’ll deny the historical evidence of how the ‘Southern Strategy’ still plays a vital role in Republican politics in the South.

I was astounded to hear recent criticism that the ‘Liberal Press’ is not reporting the ‘positive’ stories coming out of Iraq. This came as a shock to me seeing the flag-waving, gung-ho coverage of the invasion of Fallujah, but not evidence of the Pyhrric victory that has followed.

Since Nov 2, I’ve sensed a profound irritation coming from the Right, who unconsciously believed all criticism of this President, his administration and their collective failures would dissipate with their victory.

I’m not challenging the outcome of the game, I’m just pointing out how you made sure the playing field was not leveled.

Bert

Since I am already on the naughty list, I can comment re Republican irritation. Democrats just can’t accept that they lost. They bring up anecdotal evidence often from precincts and counties controlled by Democrats. I read your Zogby link and quoted it back to you. From your link, “With three weeks’ reflection, he’s not convinced there was an altered vote - accidental or otherwise - at least not on “a grand scale.” You can’t prove your position with someone who doesn’t agree with you.

Before the election result is formally certified in Ohio, the county Board of Elections does an extensive canvass. It carefully examines the provisional ballots, overseas ballots and ballots cast on Election Day, and runs them through the vote tabulators again. Then the board — always made up of two Democrats and two Republicans — holds a public vote to certify the result. In order for any cheating to take place, the Democrats would have to cooperate – in public.

The other thing that irritates me is that I know that we could count votes in Ohio forever and unless Kerry won the extremists wouldn’t be satisfied. It is not longer a reasonable demand.

If you have been keeping track of what I write, you might remember that before the election I advocated accepting the results and I wrote that I hoped that the result would be clear even if my guy lost. I would accept the will of the people. I have been reasonable all through this, but it is like trying to explain to a three-year-old why he can’t have the candy he wants. Kerry took a good beating. You guys should just accept the will of the people. You can still oppose Bush. You can still feel intellectually superior to us rubes who don’t know our asses from holes in the ground, but there are currently more of us than there are of you and that means that Bush is again President of the United States. See you all in 2008.

Bert,
‘All decisions are emotional decisions.’ Most people make decisions within thirty seconds. They then rationalize that emotional decision. Seen emotionally,it’s understandable the way both sides would react to the election in general, and this issue in particular. From an emotional point of view, the issue of voter fraud makes no sense to Bush supporters; after all, the right guy won. Questioning the validity of the vote smacks of sour grapes, conspiracy theory silliness, etc. Similar statements can be made about th other side. But I do think many make the effort to look at this and other issues logically. The hard part is logically applying the one’s ideology, given the emotional origins. Arg. Someone stop me, before I ramble again!

Too late. As you may have noticed, I tend to go off about the civilian casualties in Iraq at the hands of our military. It amazes me how most people cannot or will not face this issue (Jack, you’re notable exception). The few who will even address this issue bring up Iraqis killing Iraqis, Saddam Hussein, you name it- anything but the deaths of innocents at our hands.

The votes will be certified soon,& the electoral college will vote next month. We’ll see where this story goes.

Jack,

One thing I have learned from keeping track of what you write, is your consistency in side-stepping evidence you rather not acknowledge, and skewing other evidence you’re forced to address.

Where do you expect to find evidence of Black voter suppression at the polling place - in the suburbs?

They bring up anecdotal evidence often from precincts and counties controlled by Democrats.

The biggest surge in Ohio voter registration were in predominantly Black community. Expecting very large turnout and maybe even longer lines, those ‘counties controlled by Democrats’ requested more voting booths, repeatedly. And, they were repeatedly turned down by Election Commissioners of what party, Jack? Although, there were plenty of extra voting booths in storage!

I have been patient through all of this, but it is like trying to get Rev. Jerry Falwell to acknowledge the fact that the lowest divorce rate is in Massachusetts, and the states with the highest rates are in the Bible Belt South.

From ReDefeat Bush. com:
“Top 10 Questions About the Legitimacy of the 2004 Presidential Election

1. Systematic Voting Machine Irregularities: The Diebold optical scanner voting machines used in 29 Florida counties gave wildly unlikely and unauditable results, with Bush winning huge margins in heavily Democratic areas. Republicans gained 128.45% over 2000 in counties using optical scan machnes while Democrats had a �21% loss.

2. Highly Irregular Intervention by Federal Authorities: Warren County Ohio accounted for a third of Bush�s statewide margin. The county emergency services coordinator prohibited outside observers from monitoring the counting, on the advice of the Federal Department of Homeland Security. Bush�s most important county in Ohio and the nation was the only one to do this.

3. Impossible Vote Totals: More votes were recorded than there are registered voters in six Florida counties. In Baker County Florida there are 12,887 registered voters, and 69.3% of them are registered Democrats and 24.3% are Republicans. Yet Kerry received only 2,180 votes to 7,738 for Bush, meaning that 5 out of 7 Democrats voted for Bush. In Franklin Ohio a machine reported an extra 3,893 votes for Bush. Local officials can neither explain how nor can they provide assurance that thousands of identical machines did not also malfunction.

4. Unfair Election Supervisors: Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, an aggressive Republican activist, saw to it that the polling place for Kenyon College had only two voting machines, causing some students to wait up to 9 hours to vote. This was true elsewhere as well.

5. Untrustworthy Vendors of Election Machinery: The two major vendors of electronic voting machines, ESS and Diebold, are the chief beneficiaries of the Help America Vote Act and are active Republican donors. [Adrienne’s note: The two men who own ESS and Diebold also happen to be brothers] The software in these machines is not open source, so its functioning cannot be independently verified, and the machines do not produce an auditable paper trail.

6. Unexplained Exit Poll Disparities: Exit polls in states that had verifiable paper trails were virtually identical to the real results, but in states where electronic voting machines were used the exit polls were very different than the total reported on the voting machines.

7. Unreliable Voting Machinery in Poor and Working Class Areas: Hispanic voters in New Mexico are five times as likely to have their vote �spoiled,� or set aside as an uncountable punch card ballot as New Mexico�s white voters. About 3% of votes cast are not recorded due to this.

8. Atypical Voting Changes from 2000 to 2004: Bush�s statewide total in Ohio declined from 2000 to 2004, and the overwhelming portion of his statewide margin (85%) came from just 9 counties, all of which showed improvement from 2000 to 2004. Bush won over 70% of the vote in just two of those counties in 2000 but won over 70% in all of them in 2004.

9. Uncounted Ballots: In Ohio 92,672 ballots did not register a vote when run through a counting machine and 155,000 people voted on provisional ballots.

10. Illegal Voter Suppression Activities: The Republican Party in Ohio and elsewhere distributed flyers with false information on polling places and eligibility.”

Interesting list isn’t it?
It was made on November 11 - and so doesn’t mention many other things which have come to light, nor does it mention the fact that the Ohio vote has not been certified yet - _precisely_ so that the election outcome cannot be overturned by the recount that is definitely going to happen in that state.

It seems to me that the only reason we aren’t rioting in the streets is because this information has been intentionally kept out the media so that the likely majority who voted for John Kerry know nothing about it. It is a shame that because of this imposed ignorance, the American people won’t have a chance to take our cues from the Ukrainian’s regarding our past election. If we did, we’d all start loudly protesting and writing letters to our representatives demanding that the country hold another election - all using identical paper ballots, and all hand counted by bi-partisan committees - even if it takes _months_ to get an fair and honest result.

You Republican’s can pull your see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil act as much as you like and continue to claim that Bush won, while telling us Liberals that we’re nothing but sour grapes and sore losers - but it appears totally obvious from the sheer weight of evidence that supports the widespread allegations of hacking, fraud, and disenfranchisement that the early exit polls were right - we had a Liberal victory and lost it to cheating and stealing just like we did in Florida in 2000, but this time on a much grander scale.

Adrienne-

I find it odd that the GOP would be able to keep any negative story out of the media. You saw what 60 Minutes II was willing to run with.

Here is the story in the Boston Globe today. Certainly that paper is no friend of GW’s. It is a pretty detailed look at many of the issues you cite.

Election Day Problems

George:
“I find it odd that the GOP would be able to keep any negative story out of the media.”

Yes, its all very odd, but the GOP has been able to keep lots of negative stories out of the media lately - a great deal of the negative news out of Iraq, for example.
I don’t claim to know why the media has been so silent about the stealing of this election, but they definitely are. You would think that when six prominent members of congress have called for a non-partisan investigation into documentable voting problems, you have the Green Party and the Libertarians joining forces and coming up with the money for a recount, and now, with Jesse Jackson forcefully speaking out, it should certainly be a topic of discussion among all the media outlets.
When you look at official election results that make absolutely no sense, the fact that the media (aside from Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, and the folks at Air America Radio) are ignoring the election fraud story seems seems stranger still. For instance, a suburban precinct outside Columbus, Ohio, that has 800 voters, but recorded 3,893 for Bush. Or in a town west of Cleveland, with about 13,000 voters, but some 18,000 votes were cast. Or in suburban Cleveland, 29 precincts reported 93,000 more votes than they had voters.
Or what about election officials in Warren County (outside of Cincinnati) trying to justify their extreme secrecy measures on election day by locking down the building where votes were counted and preventing reporters or other citizens from watching the count, then claiming that the FBI and Homeland Security agents had warned them that they were under Code Red terrorist alert - a claim which the FBI has subsequently denied.

There are stories, oddities and strangeness’ galore - but hardly any of it is being reported by the major media outlets. It seems that only us internet bloggers are reporting and sharing the real news with each other these days.

If you have been keeping track of what I write, you might remember that before the election I advocated accepting the results and I wrote that I hoped that the result would be clear even if my guy lost.

You aren’t the only one being consistent, Jack. The people who complained about blackbox voting before are still doing it. The people who espoused a critical look at the results, regardless of the outcomes, before are still doing it. Now, you can say, “Oh, you’re just sore because Bush won”, but that is unproveable speculation on your part. The evidence fits a consistent concern for the integrity of the process.

Woody

I don’t think that there would be this gnashing of teeth if Kerry had won, although we can never know.

One piece of evidence that seems to fit this interpretation, however, is the inordinate interest in one state – Ohio. If there is a problem with the machines, presumably there is a problem also in California, Texas, and New York etc. And if it is systematic problem, the best way to uncover it would be by looking at the places with the largest numbers of voters – again that would be California, New York & Texas. From the population and closeness angle, Pennsylvania is much more interesting. It has more voters and the margin of victory was smaller. Why Ohio? Maybe because it could give the election to John Kerry, who would then have the distinction of ONLY president since 1888 to beat an opponent who won more than 50% of the popular vote and the ONLY one to be elected by results of a recount in one state. Talk about legitimacy problems. You guys (with some justification) complained in 2000 when Gore got 48.3% of the vote and actually lost the initial Florida vote and two recounts.

Ohio is the only state that had lines of voters waiting nine hours to vote because not enough voting machines were sent to the districts - and where, it was discovered after the election, this only occurred in Democratic districts. Ohio is the only state where over a hundred thousand votes were cast by voters who don’t even exist in various districts. Ohio is the only state that the owner of Diebold promised to win for Bush in a memo that had circulated well before the election.
Ohio was simply the most obvious place to investigate - but Florida is being looked at too, because of a lot of bizarre and non-sensical anomalies. Its also rather strange how the exit polls in almost every swing state gave the election to Kerry, but somehow, Bush ended up the being the winner.

Recently, a blogger friend was lamenting on how yet another disturbing analysis of exit polling from Ohio, was still not enough to gain the attention of the mainstream media. Then I was struck by a revelation that made me more determined to seek accountability in this matter.

And, it has everything to do with the fact that my last comment post in this thread from December 1 - has so far gone unanswered.

It dawned on me, that if the evidence at the center of any given election fraud debate focuses solely on exit polling anomaly’s, voter registration discrepancies, electronic voting machine errors, miss-counts, hand counts, Provisional ballots, absentee ballots, butterfly ballots, spoiled ballots and human error, they all have one thing in common - the accepted perception that there is possibly a completely reasonable explanation for it.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but every news account written and broadcast so far - and, every detractor in this Comment thread - have based their dismissal up to this point, solely on this evidence, too.

So again, I will linked to The Free Press article detailing yet to be refuted - and more importantly, absent any reasonable explanation - evidence of voter suppression on the part of Republicans in the state of Ohio.

Voter supression

Anecdotal evidence is always suspect. But what do they say in those anecdotes in the Free Press?

People had to wait a long time (sometimes) and they think there were problems with the machines. Even innocent things can look ominous when not in context. Here are at least seven “irregularities” in my voting.

I voted in Fairfax Co Virginia, a well off suburb. We recently moved back to Virginia from New Hampshire. My wife and I called separately to make sure we were still registered (we moved back to the same address). An election worker told my wife that she was still registered, no problem. A presumably different election worker told me that I had to register again, which I did.

Conspiracy theory 1 – one of us received misleading information. “They” were probably trying to keep me away from the polls by making me download and fill out an additional form.

I got a new voter card in the mail. My wife had her old one. She was worried because it said on the back “temporary address”.

Conspiracy theory 2 – “They were trying to suppress my wife’s vote by making her nervous.

I went to vote mid morning and had to wait around an hour and a half hour. My wife, who has a different last name, had to wait about two hours because the line for the first letter of her name was longer.

Conspiracy theory 3 – Both of us had to wait a long time (even though we went at a non-peak time) and my wife was made to wait an extra half hour. “They” were trying to discourage her.

When my wife got to the front of her longer line, the election worker questioned her registration, because of her old voter card. She showed her picture ID; they found her name and let her go, but …

Conspiracy theory 4 – “They” were trying to intimidate her. Some people gave her dirty looks.

I got to the front and saw a touch screen. The election worker was explaining to an old woman how it worked, but when my turn came she didn’t offer to explain it to me.

Conspiracy theory 5 – “They” were trying to confuse me by not telling me what to do. By the way, there were only three machines.

After I was finished voting, a screen came up that asked me to confirm my votes. I noticed that I had made one mistake on a referendum vote. I wanted to vote for a new crossing near the metro, but it said I voted no.

Conspiracy theory 6 – This machine was preloaded, because I certainly could never have made a mistake by pushing the wrong button. I will never know if my vote was counted. Not only that, the machine seemed to take a couple seconds to register my final vote. I suspect the secret John Kerry code transmitter slowed it down.

When I looked in the paper the next day, I saw that John Kerry won my precinct by a narrow margin.

Conspiracy theory 7 – Almost everybody I know voted for George Bush. Virginia is a Republican state and my county is seems to have Republican demographics. My conclusion is that my vote among, others, must have been falsified. After all, how else could the person I voted for not win?

Each step sound reasonable, doesn’t it? And it is all true. I am sure any voter could come up with something similar. That is not supression; it is just life.

Jack,

I can only say that I’m disappointed and not the bit amused, by your flippant disregard for credible evidence and our serious concerns.

Bert

I am sorry you feel that way.

In reviewing my own voting experience, I can find at least those seven anomalies I mentioned. Anything, closely examined, will produce such results. Any one of the things I experienced sounds ominous.

I don’t think the people in your anecdotes are lying, but I do suspect that they are mistaken or reading too much into the situation.

Let me take the points one by one.

Janine Smith-White, Youngstown:
She may have pushed the wrong button, as I did on the referendum.

Steven Heyman, Pickerington:
People should just check where they are supposed to vote. I always do. Sometimes the polls change. It is the voter’s responsibility to check.

Tom Pinnetello:
This first time voter may also have pushed the wrong button. That is why the machine asks you to review your vote before you push the green button. Again, I myself pushed a wrong button and caught it on the proof reading.

Jen Miller:
Life is tough. I had to wait an hour and a half at a non-rush time. I assume lines were much longer during rush hours.

Cathy Varian:
Signs on my machines weren’t posted either. Poll workers are not paid well and they only do the work once every two or four years. We have to expect some mistakes.

Mark Dunbar, Columbus:
same as above

John Perry, Upper Arlington:
If the person pushes the button for Nader by mistake, we don’t know who he “really’ wanted to vote for. Maybe he did intent to vote for Nader. We can’t make it much simpler to vote, but there will always be those that can’t pull it off. There will always be a percentage of voters who spoil their ballots. The percentage is higher for first time voters, and we had an unusually high number of first time voters this year.

Monica Justo, Columbus:
I never heard of a vote in a funeral home, but both Democrats and Republicans had to have agreed to the location. Again, it sounds like an ordinary glitch, no worse than any of mine.

Michael Greenman, Westerville:
I don’t know why his name wasn’t on the list either. It didn’t stop him from voting and he seems to have had a good experience. My wife had a similar small glitch, as I mentioned.

Tom Kessel, Bexley:
The woman probably just liked to talk. This guy sounds like a pain in the rear. He probably manages to antagonize people in general. If the Republican worker had arranged in advance to cheat, she wouldn’t be talking all the time.

So going through the complete list from the Free Press, I don’t find anything that I couldn’t match with my own or my wife’s voting experience if we were to read evil intent into activities that were either nothing much or simple mistakes. In typing this note, I made numerous mistakes in typing and spelling. I didn’t intent to make any of them.

I am sorry that so many people are convinced that there were widespread problems, but just because a lot of people think something doesn’t make it true. Many people are convinced of a lot of things that aren’t true. The human memory is notoriously malleable, so I expect people exaggerate their stories, but even if they were 100% true, there is not much to them. I am sorry, but I don’t find any of these accounts credible as examples of voter suppression. It just sounds like a lot of first time voters and/or voters confronted with new machines.

Jack said:

Life is tough. I had to wait an hour and a half at a non-rush time. I assume lines were much longer during rush hours.

How did you know you voted during ‘non-rush time’? Know anyone who had to wait 2-4 hours to vote? Know of anyone who did not vote because of long line? According to you, voters are responsible to check to make sure of their polling place location, but poll workers are underpaid, prone to mistakes and therefore get a pass?

I see that I need to get even more specific as to the evidence I am referring to, as you gravitated to the minor anecdotal examples, and yet again, side-stepping evidence of Republican Election officials complicity.

There were plenty more links in the right column, but lets concentrate on these allegations about voting booths.

Bert

The Washington Post (Liberal, Kerry supporting) ran an article by a Kerry supporting AFL-CIA activist from Ohio talking about why Kerry lost the state.

Among the things he mentioned as not happening widespread suppression. IN fact, turnout in Democratic counties was up 8.7% while it was up by only 6.3% in Republican counties.

The majority of the people of Ohio, like the majority of Americans in general, simply preferred George Bush. Tomorrow the vote will be certified. It is over. Move on and forget those anecdotes about people who couldn’t find the polls of couldn’t figure out how to use the voting booths.

Funny Jack,

I happen to be registered at the Washington Post and did a search of ‘Kerry’, ‘AFL-CIO’, ‘Ohio’ and ‘Voter Suppression’, and came up with nothing. Plus, the fact that you did not provide a link to the article furthers my suspicions as to your assertions.

I read the Washington Post in the actual paper format. The link was easy to find however. Read and weep.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34157-2004Dec3.html

I read the Washington Post in the actual paper format. The link was easy to find however. Read and weep.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34157-2004Dec3.html

Despite Jack’s assertion that everything that happened in Ohio can be easily explained, and that none of us should pay any attention to the men behind the voting booth curtains in that state…

Democratic Representative John Conyers, of Michigan, ranking Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on all the Ohio Election irregularities this coming Wednesday December 8th at 10:00 AM, EST. (Hopefully C-Span will be covering it.) Democratic Representatives Melvin Watt and Robert Scott will be involved with conducting the hearing as well.
Also in attendance will be:
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Ralph Neas (President, People for the American Way)
Jon Greenbaum (Director, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights Under Law)
Ellie Smeal (Executive Director, The Feminist Majority)
Bob Fitrakis ( The Free Press)
Cliff Arnebeck (Arnebeck Associates)
John Bonifaz (General Counsel, National Voting Institute)
Steve Rosenfeld (Producer, Air America Radio)
Shawnta Walcott (Communications Director, Zogby International).

Conyer’s letter inviting Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to attend may be read here:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120404W.shtml

If this story is true, the allegations about electronic fraud in Florida are about to hit the fan.

www.bradblog.com

If true, a Florida congressman requested a computer programmer to construct software to commit electronic fraud with the vote. Now the programmer is singing like a bird. The site is undergoing too many hits right now, so I couldn’t even finish the article before getting knocked off the site.

Here is the site to see the sworn affadavit.

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/images/CC_Affidavit_120604.pdf

It has been submitted to the House Judiciary Committee. If this is true, then hold onto your hats…

Jack,
Thanks for digging out the Washington Post article link, but it actually bolsters my argument instead.

In your article, Mr. Rosenthal’s argument is based on actual turnout and voting data. He points out that turnout in Democratic leaning counties (compared to Republican) was higher by only 2.4% percent. However, according to this article from The New York Times, Mr. Rosenthal tells how voter registration in predominantly Democratic areas was up by 250% percent, compared to 50% percent in Republican areas!

Between Project Vote and ACT, they had registered 447,000 new voters (by percentage, new Republican voters would range around 22,000), according to the article.

Where did all those new voters go? Are we to believe the overwhelming majority stayed at home?

And, you still have no explanation or defense for the actions of Republican Election official Mr. Damschroder documented in the Free Press articles.

Even these Democrats in the article don’t think there is any real reason to question the results. The “evidence” for fraud is silly. That is why we have proper laws. You guys can continue to believe what you choose. George Bush is president of the United States. When John Kennedy was asked about his mandate in an even closer election, he said, I’m here. the other guy isn’t.” That is all that counts. It really is over. Let the myth building begin.

The “evidence” for fraud is silly. That is why we have proper laws. You guys can continue to believe what you choose.

I will at this point consider this debate exhausted Jack, but I need to reiterate one last point.

One important rule when I debate in these WatchBlog Comment threads, is to acknowledge others arguments and to counter their assertions, facts and sources directly, pointedly and respectfully. This is not the Yahoo Message brd or Slate.com’s The Fray.

I do not expect or encourage Republicans or Conservatives to defend everything their party leaders/members do. A few here gained my instant respect and credibility recently, by condemning the actions of a Tom DeLay or Jerry Falwell, making it clear they do not represent their brand of ideology.

An article I’d like to recommend:

What Became of Conservatives?

I just don’t see the evidence listed as serious. It does show a real difference in perspective.

I think it has to do with mental models and paradigms. The facts people consider important depend on people’s paradigm. I assume that both (all) parties are mostly honest, but that each of the “shaves” a little when given a chance. That is a human thing. It is not a good thing, but it is unavoidable. It has to be kept in check and in perspective. The evidence people are giving that the election is unfair indicates that these little things may have happened. I expect Republicans could come up with a similar list of real and imagined grievances. It doesn’t really matter.

The evidence of long lines and people getting lost is also a human thing. There is an old saying that you should never attribute to malevolence what can better be explained by stupidity. This comment is not aimed at you or the people in the blog. It describes many of the first time voters - even some veterans – and some of the poll workers. We can’t expect a perfect performance by voters or elections officials. What we need to do is define their work within acceptable parameters. This we have achieved. I have seen absolutely nothing that indicates this election did not function within parameters that would be accepted by neutral parties. I say again, just because people believe something, doesn’t make it true. That is why we have standards of evidence that we put in place BEFORE the election. By those standards of evidence, Bush won by 119,000 votes, which is a substantial majority.

By the way, neither Farwell nor DeLay Represent most Republicans, Just like Sharpton or Moore don’t represent most Democrats. Both sides like to point to the extemists on the other. American parties are not pure. We all have alot of people we don’t much like as allies, but that is the way we get things done in the U.S. - we make deals and compromises.

If Democrats under estimate the conservative tendancies of the “common man” (as suggested by a Republican apologist in his attempt to explain Florida anomalies) then I would also like to suggest that Republicans have lost sight of the uncommon man or woman who will speak up and fight when they feel their freedom is threatened.

I voted in this election, I usually don’t vote because I generally believe that the US elects presidents the way it chooses a laundry soap, the most advertised brand in the most appealing package. If there is little difference in the contents, the choice of brand doesn’t really matter.

I took the time to register and vote against both Bush and Regan. Both times I felt that the contents of the package were inferior and that electing this individual to office would damage the country.

I have customers all over the country, they were as outraged as I and felt that there were many people who would come out and vote because they were just plain SCARED of what another Bush term would do to the country.

I stayed up all night after the election. I could not believe that Bush won. I literally went into a state of depression and mourning for the country. The next day a friend on a Yahoo board mentioned the lines in Ohio that he personally experienced, and I began to research the election on the internet. I came across votergate.tv and a lot of solid information on voting irregularities in Ohio and other states.

What I learned turned my feelings of distrust for the administration and disrespect for the performance of the president into real fear and a conviction that our democracy is fighting for its life.

Republicans, you may continue to dismiss the concerns of folks like myself, but that isn’t going to make us go away.

Don’t dismiss us as just “sore loosers”. People like me don’t have a party affiliation, Kerry was not “our guy”, Bush is just a nightmare come true.

If you believe that your party is not corrupt, then you should be encouraging folks like me to investigate and revise the rules and procedures until we feel we can trust the system again.

When you dismiss concerned patriots as “conspiracy theorists” you put party before country.